


but i'm gonna love you til it kills me love you til i’m blue in the head

by johniaurens



Series: call me an addict to your elastic moods [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Consent Issues, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Fluff, Healthy Communication Is My Biggest Kink, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Linear Narrative, Slice of Life, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:13:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7561774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johniaurens/pseuds/johniaurens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>ignore me. im projecting everything about myself including my sleeping position onto john laurens my favorite human disaster. </p><p>consent issues + dom/sub undertones are for section 4. a safeword is established and the scene is ended, but there is a brief (non-graphic, nonsexual) period where consent isn't enthusiastic & freely given. take care of yourselves. </p><p>in case anyone was wondering alex is genderfluid (boy / demiboy / agender) and john is a demiboy. </p><p>title from show by neon trees. i almost abandoned this fic midway through because i couldnt think of the antonym for "drying".</p>
    </blockquote>





	but i'm gonna love you til it kills me love you til i’m blue in the head

**Author's Note:**

> ignore me. im projecting everything about myself including my sleeping position onto john laurens my favorite human disaster. 
> 
> consent issues + dom/sub undertones are for section 4. a safeword is established and the scene is ended, but there is a brief (non-graphic, nonsexual) period where consent isn't enthusiastic & freely given. take care of yourselves. 
> 
> in case anyone was wondering alex is genderfluid (boy / demiboy / agender) and john is a demiboy. 
> 
> title from show by neon trees. i almost abandoned this fic midway through because i couldnt think of the antonym for "drying".

John gets in the shower too early in the morning. Woke up too early. Didn't feel like just lying there until his alarm went off. Crawled out of the bed and into the bathroom because he likes his showers short, likes them early, likes them before work. 

Water on, lukewarm. He touches his hair, feels the tips, squeezes a few strands of wet hair between his fingers and makes a face. They cut it too short again. His hairdresser doesn't seem to understand that he likes it long, likes it thick, and when he says “trim” he really does only mean maybe an inch off at most. Certainly no layering. It's too short. Weirdly thin. He gets water in his ears. Mechanically goes through the steps of shampooing his hair. Wet, lather, rinse. They're out of conditioner again. He'll have to pick some up later. There's a rustle of the shower curtain and then Alex slips into the bathtub behind him, still clumsy with sleep but solid against John. Hands on his belly, lips on his shoulder. John leans back into him, into his pulse and his perpetually cold skin, and deflates. Alex pets the edges of his ribcage, digs his thumbs in right below the bone and pets his sides with his fingers and palms, lets him do his thing. For a little bit they just breathe together. John adores moments like these, when they're both still sleepy, the world around them still quiet and good. They have nowhere to go yet. John doesn't have to be at work for another three hours, Alex works from home anyway. They have time. 

Alex lets go, picks up the shampoo bottle so he can wash his own hair. They used to wash each other's hair and all that when they first moved in together but it got old pretty quick and there's better places to show affection than in the slippery, too-small bathtub. They still do it sometimes, sure. There's times when it seems appropriate. Not today. John listens to Alex humming under his breath, washes his body. Sits down in the tub. Alex sits down behind him, doesn't touch him with purpose, just gets level with him, knees knocking against his back when he shifts. That's a thing for him, John knows, being equal, even when it's just small things like this. 

Alex finishes rinsing off his hair, washes his body, climbs out of the tub. John closes his eyes, leans back. He's not in a hurry. His limbs feel loose. He feels – he feels neutral. No strong feelings about anything and yet not numb. It's a good day. 

John stretches. There's no clock in the bathroom but he's pretty sure it's been fifteen minutes now which means he should probably get out. He doesn't like getting his fingers wrinkly from soaking in the water for too long. There's something about the feeling and the sight that makes him feel uneasy in a weird dissociation way. 

“Alex,” he yells from the tub.   
  
“Yeah?” yells Alex back, muffled through the wall.   
  
John taps on the wall absently. The paint is starting to flake. Personally, John would never have rented an apartment with bathroom room walls made of anything but tile, but Alex liked the windows, Alex liked the elevator, Alex liked the dark wooden floors. John can ignore the bathroom walls.   
  
“You took my towel.” Alex doesn't answer at first. “Alex?” yells John, louder.   
  
“Okay,” answers Alex, like he doesn't get it.   
  
“I don't have a towel.” John crosses his arms over the edge of the tub. Chin on top of his arms. There's a twinge starting at the base of his spine but he feels too lazy to move. 

Alex appears in the doorway holding a towel, John's warm yellow towel around his hips, hair towel-turbaned with his own aquamarine blue towel. He's put on his socks. Nothing else. Just two towels and gray socks. It's amazing how far he's come – just a few months ago he wouldn't have been caught dead shirtless in front of anyone. It's probably partly the top surgery, partly the fact that Alex has learned to take his body as it is. Speculation, John knows, though he prefers to call it an educated guess. John likes him like this. Soft. Open.   
  
“Hey,” says John, his face stretching into a smile, because he feels silly, suddenly, naked and lazy and in love. Alex smiles back, a little shy, and hands him the towel he's carrying, folded up and soft from the dryer. Seaweed green. Green green beautiful green. “Thank you,” he says, and Alex touches his face with one finger, absent but gentle.   
  
“Yeah.” 

Alex slips out. John smiles at the wall for a long while before getting out of the tub himself. Yeah. A good day, definitely.

-

The stoplight system is Alex's idea. Well – most things are Alex's idea. He has a lot of ideas and a lot of time to put into coming up with new ideas. John is mostly left with being confused about them.

Like now. “What,” asks John, trying to understand, “exactly is the purpose of bringing this out of context?” Context being bed, like, _bed_ bed. Context being sex. More specifically, context being kink. Context being, or rather, context _not_ being normal, everyday domestic life. 

(John wasn't a big fan of having a safeword in the first place, thought that “stop” was good enough for a safeword, but that gave Alex anxiety. Made him panic. John tried to get him to explain why but that only made him panic more, so he said “okay” because it really didn't matter that much to him. “Okay,” he whispered into Alex's skin, his neck, his cheek. “Okay okay okay okay,” babbled Alex back. John pressed dry kisses all over his face until Alex calmed down.) 

Alex shrugs at him, the collar of his shirt partly in his mouth. He's biting at it again. He keeps ruining his shirts like this. Dozens of tiny holes in the collars of his shirts, in the collars of John's shirts that he sometimes sleeps in or wears when he's feeling anxious, which, really, makes no sense. They're the same size. Their clothes smell the same. John supposes it's the idea behind it, the feeling of being contained by him, even if it isn't literal. Alex adds teeth, nibbles on the fabric. John fights the urge to tell him to stop. Alex lets the shirt collar fall from his mouth. There are damp toothmarks on the fabric.  
  
“A way to disengage from a situation with no consequences. A quick way to signal your mood when you're overwhelmed or the other one isn't getting that you're not joking. The same as when we're, you know, doing stuff.”

John hums, pulls Alex closer. Wraps his arm around his shoulders. Alex makes a choked-off purring sound in the back of his throat, pulls John's arm on top of his head.   
  
“Want me to squish you?” asks John, and Alex says “m-hm”.   
  
Alex lies down on the floor, face down, arms apart, a little awkward, and John gets his knees on both sides of his waist, sits down on the dip of his back, kisses the knob of his neck. Alex shuffles underneath him, settles. Fixes his position. John settles down on top of him, face to neck. Alex sighs, goes still. John nuzzles his neck. 

“Hey, Alex?” he says after a few moments of silence. Alex hums sleepily, body almost liquid-loose under John. “Yeah,” John says, “yeah.” 

John watches as Alex's face goes from confusion to surprise to happiness, stretches his arm so he can trace the outline of the part of Alex's lips that he can see from this angle.

-

“They, them,” says Alex as they walk into the apartment. John looks at them over his glass of orange juice, nods.

This isn't a new thing. Alex has been doing this as long as he remembers. Alex doesn't want to make a big deal out of their pronouns or their current gender feeling, as they refer to it. Usually they're okay with he, him most of the time, but they get insecure sometimes. Social dysphoria, they call it. John doesn't exactly empathize, but he gets it. Gets the basic idea. It works for them both.

“Where were you?” he asks, because it's eight in the morning on a Saturday and Alex rarely leaves the apartment this early. Been out since before John woke up an hour ago. Alex shrugs, takes off their jacket. It's way too hot to wear a jacket outside anyway, mercury reading 85, but Alex runs a little cold. They joke it runs in their blood. It makes John worry – circulatory problems, maybe. Alex doesn't care. John knows Alex won't care until their fingers turn blue and fall off, and then only because they won't be able to type anymore. John worries for them, sometimes, Alex with their anger and passion, Alex with their too-cold fingers, Alex with their carpal tunnels. 

Alex shrugs. “Out,” they say, and they have a weird look on their face that John doesn't recognize but internally sorts into his collection of Bad Looks that he keeps in his brain. He doesn't press. Alex doesn't elaborate, sits down next to him. Curls his foot so that their ankles knock together, Alex's foot coming to rest on top of John's. John offers Alex his glass and Alex makes a disgusted noise but takes it anyway, takes a long sip until John is making panicked noises.   
  
“Alex,” he chastises, takes the glass back. “I didn't mean that you should drink all of it.” Alex shrugs, kisses his cheek. Gets up. 

John thinks about working out a bit. Alex sits down on the couch, cuddles into the blankets and pillows there, turns on the TV. John finishes his juice, puts the glass in the sink, sinks onto the floor at Alex's feet. Alex makes soft noises at him and puts their hands into his hair.

-

The handcuffs go click. John yanks on them a little. They don't give. He asked for them; he thought they'd help him focus but all they're doing is keeping him aware of just how not-calm he is. He can't move his hands. That's the point. He can't move.

“John,” says Alex who knows him too well, concern in his voice, “give me a color, baby.” 

John freezes, caught off guard. “Green,” he says. Autopilot. _Maybe if I'm good and do as he wants he won't leave me_ -reflex like he likes to call it. Alex backs off.  
  
“No,” he says, and John deflates. Tears leak out of the corners of his eyes, one part shame, two parts fear, and Alex goes “shitshitshit”, fumbles the handcuffs open, and backs off. Puts a few steps between them. John feels a little numb, a lot disappointed. Panic isn't quite creeping up his spine yet but he knows it's only a matter of time until it'll be there, squishing him down. This is far from being the worst that's happened but he knows that Alex must still feel awful, which in turn makes him feel terrible.

Doing scenes when John's like this is always a hit or miss. He knows this. They both do, have learned to read each other well enough to know when it's helping and when it's just making it worse, have learned to do very quick but efficient damage control, but it doesn't make it any less awful when a scene goes bad.   
  
“Please don't stop touching me,” says John, very quiet, and Alex takes a few steps towards him, tries to find a neutral place to touch. Settles for his shoulders. John wants him somewhere more vulnerable; wants him to touch him somewhere where he's defenseless and fragile. Stomach. Inside of his elbow. Wrists. Throat.   
  
Alex doesn't like to touch him when he's like this, feels like he's breaking boundaries even when John asks him to. Feels like he can't trust John's verbal consent. The first time this happened Alex had refused to come near him for several minutes which had freaked John out more than zoning out on him and stopping consenting had. Granted, the first time it happened John was a yellow instead of a red, is a yellow again, knows that when he's trying to pass a red as a green it'll hurt him just as much as it hurts Alex. For Alex, even a yellow is a red if it's ignored. John doesn't fully understand his logic, but he supposes it must make sense. This is a compromise Alex is making for him and John is fully aware of it. He takes it. Leans into the touch, works himself back down as Alex's fingers massage the knots in his neck, his shoulders. Rolls his shoulders. Alex traces his fingers over the arch of his shoulder. He looks shaken and John knows he's going to have to calm Alex down after this. He doesn't mind it, never could, but right now he feels tired. Anxious. 

Alex reads his thoughts. “Green. I'm not going anywhere,” says Alex. “Okay,” says John. Tries to trust it.

-

Alex is writing, has been for hours. He's not having a good day, John knows, knows from the hunch of his back and the furrow of his brow, knows from the way he keeps exclaiming wordlessly every now and then. He's been switching pronouns all day, anxious about something unrelated and ready to jump out of his skin. John is struggling to keep up. He's settled on _he, him_ for now. Says they don't feel completely right but more so than _they, them_. John suggests that they look into other pronouns and see if Alex would prefer any of them, but Alex makes a noise like an impatient horse and goes back to typing.

Alex is never quiet when he's typing – either he's talking to himself, or he's talking to John, or he's making weird wordless noises that John isn't sure translate to anything specific, just feelings. Alex screams, muffled. Quiet. Not angry, just frustrated. “You okay there?” asks John. Alex makes a dismissive sound. 

John gets up. Goes into the kitchen. Gets himself a glass of water and drinks it very slowly, focuses on not taking stuff personally. He's still trying with that. When he's done with the glass of water he refills it and focuses again. Refill. Drink. Refill. By the time he thinks he's done he's had five glasses of water and feels extremely well hydrated and a lot calmer. 

He's just in front of the bedroom door when Alex shuts it, lock and all. It goes _click_ and then Alex is typing again. John stands very still. For a few minutes he has no idea what to do. His world narrows to the locked door in front of him and the dark room that it's keeping him from, the dark room and Alex, and he panics.  
  
“Give me a bit,” says Alex through the door. The typing doesn't pause. John thinks back to the water and not taking things personally, collects himself and goes to sit down on the couch. 

There's nothing on TV. John opens Netflix, looks around for a bit, watches an episode of X Files and turns the TV off. There's a bad feeling gnawing at his bones. He gets up to get his glass from the sink, drinks another glass of water, but all it does is make him feel uncomfortably full of liquid. The feeling gnawing at his bones is spreading to his chest and he knows that if he doesn't nip this at the bud it's going to bloom into a full-blown panic attack. He forces his legs to move him down the hall. 

After just standing there for a few minutes John knocks on the door.   
  
“No,” says Alex in his no nonsense voice.   
  
“Red,” says John, and feels pathetic for it. There's a sound of the laptop being placed on the floor and then Alex is opening the door, concerned.  
  
“What do you need?” he asks, and John shrugs, suddenly feeling silly.  
  
“Please let me in please” escapes from him before he's given his tongue a permission to move, and Alex takes him by the shoulders and pulls him in. Gentle. Cautious.  
  
“Sorry,” says John when he's sitting on the bed again.  
  
“It's fine,” says Alex, “I'm not mad at you. Sorry for locking you out.”   
  
John shrugs. “You're busy. You're having a bad day. I get it.”   
  
Alex makes a noise of acknowledgment. “Still. Should've checked with you.”   
  
John shrugs. Puts on his pajamas. Goes to brush his teeth. Slips under the covers. 

The typing pauses when John puts down his phone and rolls over onto his back, spreads his arms over his head. There's a pause.   
  
“I love you,” Alex finally says, “please don't forget that.”  
  
John doesn't open his eyes but he smiles in Alex's general direction. “I love you too,” he says.   
  
He can almost feel Alex smiling at him before going back to typing. He's still making angry noises, but this time they sound more like regular writing noises. “You go get them, baby,” John thinks. Slips into half sleep. 

Alex wakes him up when he pulls the covers back to join him.  
  
“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” says Alex, settles down.   
  
“What time is it?” asks John, groggy, except that he's still half asleep and it sounds more like “whtimest,” and Alex laughs, kisses the tip of his nose, and then, almost as if he can't stop himself, his forehead, his cheeks, his lips. John smiles at him, tries to kiss back, but Alex pulls back, kisses his jaw once and then lies down, soft and sweet and _there_ and John rolls over to bury his face into Alex's chest.

-

Alex buys a shirt that says “NO BOYFRIEND NO PROBLEM” in thick black letters. John has to sit down and breathe very deep when he sees it.

“I thought it was funny,” says Alex, now sullen. He doesn't seem to think _John_ is being very funny right now.  
  
“Alex,” says John, as steady as he can, “I'm your boyfriend.” Alex keeps picking at the hem of the shirt. His posture is getting defensive.   
  
“You're a demiboy,” he says, eventually, and John knows what he means (“Look, it's funny, see, no BOYfriend because you're not a boy, right? You should get one too. It'll be funny.”) but it's still like all air has been punched out of him.   
  
“So I'm, what, only half your boyfriend? Is that what you're saying?” 

It's unfair. He _knows_ that's not what Alex meant. He doesn't – he's being dramatic and manipulative for no reason other than because he's had a bad day and Alex happened to do this today of all days and now that he got himself worked up over this he's genuinely terrified that Alex is going to leave. Going to take his NO BOYFRIEND NO PROBLEM shirt and walk right out. Then he'll have no boyfriend and no problems. No boyfriend problem. Problem boyfriend. There's a lump in his throat. He refuses to cry. 

“John,” says Alex, frustrated.   
  
“Red,” says John and locks himself in the bathroom because he knows he's not going to be able to bring anything constructive into this conversation in this state. The steps of calming himself down come to him a little mechanical. On the floor. Cheek on the cool tile. Arms open. Focus on how the air feels in his lungs, how his ribcage expands, breathe, breathe, breathe. He knows that Alex is sitting on the other side of the door, back against the wood, and it makes him feel both worse and better. 

Minutes pass.   
  
“Alex.”   
  
Alex hums in acknowledgment, raps his knuckles against the door. John knocks back, gentle.   
  
“Can you.” Stops there. Blinks hard.   
  
“I'm not angry at you,” says Alex, immediately.   
  
They've done this so many times and Alex still manages to sound so raw every time he's forced to do this. _Not forced_ , corrects John's brain, _Alex does it because he loves you_. It only helps a little but it's enough. John unlocks the door, knee-walks out of the bathroom. Alex pulls him into him and John lets himself be pulled down, buries his face into Alex's lap.

“Look,” says Alex, and his voice is trembling, “that's not what I meant. I'm sorry. I understand why you reacted the way you did. I'll return the shirt.”   
  
John wants to say “it's not the shirt.” Wants to say “it's fine just keep it I'll feel okay about it in the morning we can laugh about this together I'll feel really silly in a little bit.” Suddenly he feels like he's been sucked dry, out of words to say, out of things to give. He doesn't say anything. Alex takes his hands and leads him to bed, wraps the comforter over them both. John is still having bit of an out of body experience. The pillows feel wrong. Alex wraps himself around his body and he feels right. John focuses on him, the soft give of his belly and the hard lines of his thighs and calves. His cheek against John's, the pressure of bone against bone. 

Alex returns the shirt the next day and it makes John feel bad.

-

The alarm clock time reads 01:23 when John slips into their bedroom. He's been out all day, full 16 hours of work and then grocery shopping and then more work. Alex is sitting at his desk, half-hunched over his laptop but not typing, just staring. Snoozing off, really, eyelids drooping. The room is dark but the laptop screen is bright enough to illuminate the parts of Alex that are facing it – the dark shadows of his thick eyelashes, the curve of his lips, his hands, halfway curled into fists. He's wearing his wrist braces again. John winces: Alex never remembers to use them unless his wrists hurt bad enough that Tylenol doesn't help. Either it's getting bad again or they're out of Tylenol.

John puts his bag down on the floor as quiet as he can but Alex still flinches awake at the sound, makes a confused sound.  
  
“Shh,” says John, goes to pull Alex's laptop out of his lap. Alex stretches his hands out as if to grab it back but lets it slip out of his grip. John shuts down the laptop. By the time he turns around Alex is almost out of it again, eyelashes fluttering, mouth falling open.   
  
“Oh, sweetheart,” mumbles John, and Alex stirs, makes a sleepy sound, and John pulls him up, onto his feet, drags him over to the bed.   
  
“Take your jeans off, baby,” and Alex struggles to get his belt open, gets his jeans to mid thigh. John helps him out of them, lays him down on the bed. 

“Your wrists bothering you again?” he asks, hands hovering over the wrist braces, and Alex goes “m-hm.”  
  
It's probably carpal tunnels again. Keeps popping up again and again no matter what Alex does, though it definitely wouldn't hurt him to use his braces more regularly. It's a thing for Alex, John knows, admitting that he needs help, even if it's just wrist braces. Even if the only person he's admitting it to is himself, and the only person helping him is himself. He keeps thinking he's unbreakable. He keeps thinking that he can will all the bad things away with willpower alone. It keeps coming back, though – now more than ever. The fall has been rainy and cold and John has found himself constantly aching. Aching knees and finger joints. The air pressure is bad, and so is the dry air. He can't imagine how bad it must be for Alex – not just his wrists, but also his knees. His elbows. His ankles. His shoulders, even, on bad days. His wrists are the worst, though, always swollen by the end of the day no matter how much or little he uses them. John knows how terrible that's for him – how much it slows him down, how much that in turn annoys him, knows that he can't write when he's annoyed which annoys him even more.   
  
“I'm sorry,” he says. Takes one of Alex's wrists into his hand. Massages the bones there, gentle over the brace, careful not to go too hard.   
  
“S'not your fault,” mumbles Alex. He leans into the touch and John kisses his palm as a reward, as a thank you.   
  
“I know,” he says, because he does. He's practicing not blaming himself for things he has no control over, after all. It feels more convincing if he says it out loud. More weight that way.

Alex makes grabby hands at him until John strips out of his pants and sweater and lies down next to him. Alex cuddles into him, human octopus, or a baby koala. John wraps his arms around him, pulls him close enough that when Alex's breathing evens out he can feel the tiny puffs of air on his neck. 

John closes his eyes. Thinks _green_. Thinks _love_.

**Author's Note:**

> idk. it's 3.15 am. thank. hmu on tumblr @ softdiggs.tumblr.com or on twitter @ softlams


End file.
